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Originally Posted by curtinsea
Interesting. Here are their bullet points, and my thoughts:
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Amendment 3 is a BAD BEAT because it will virtually eliminate the expansion of live poker.
Makes it sound like live poker could currently easily be expanded in Florida. This isn't the case. The number of licenses for cardrooms is limited. Increasing it would take a legislative vote plus a vote by the citizens of a county to accept a new pari-mutuel in their county, but there aren't really new locations where that is likely to happen. With about 30 poker rooms in the state already, I'm not sure what "expansion of live poker" is supposed to be.
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Amendment 3 is a BAD BEAT because it will be impossible to update current live poker rules and for casinos/cardrooms to add new games.
Not true. The rulemaking process for poker and approval of new poker games has nothing to with Amendment 3. Amendment 3 specifically addresses "casino gambling", which is defined in the Amendment as games which are Class III under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act. Poker is Class II, so would be unaffected.
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Amendment 3 is a BAD BEAT because it will be a huge longshot for Florida to ever legalize internet poker and sports betting.
This is true. Except those are a longshot anyway due to the current politics of gambling in Florida and the lock the Seminole tribe already has through their gaming compact with the state. The exception to that is giving those forms of gambling to the Seminole casinos as part of a new state-tribal compact. That will still be possible if Amendment 3 passes.
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Amendment 3 is a BAD BEAT because it means hundreds of millions in tax dollars to fund education in Florida will be lost.
Where they heck did they come up with "hundreds of millions"? The opposition campaigns to Amendment 3, funded mainly by the pari-mutuels as well as some money coming from MGM, claim that schools will lose $20M in funding if Amendment 3 passes. If you read the fine print in their printed materials, it says this is over a 10 year period (their TV ads don't mention this). That's just $2M per year loss in school funding. that is based on the anticipated loss in gambling revenues if the casino-style banked card games are shut down at the pari-mutuels, as required under Amendment 3. However, those banked card games will probably mostly go away anyway even if Amendment 3 doesn't pass, based on recent Florida court rulings that they violate the Seminole compact and a subsequent agreement between the State of Florida and the tribe for the state to crack down on those games. (They were originally mistakenly approved by the state regulators based on a loophole in the law.) In addition, I expect some of the players and money that were siphoned off of the peer-to-peer live poker games to the banked games to return to the peer-to-peer games. This will make up for at least some of the loss in revenues. Plus, $2M is a very small amount compared to the size of the Florida annual school budget, which stands at over $21Billion per year.
From the newspaper quotes on the PPA website:
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Originally Posted by Tallahassee Democrat
Amendment 3 purports to put citizens in charge of any expansion of gambling, but it’s mainly a sop to Disney, which opposes all casino gambling, and the Seminole Tribe, which doesn’t want any competition for its gambling operations.
True. But "expansion of gambling" means slots and banked card games at the pari-mutuels and/or new casinos. Both of those, in my opinion, will take players away from the live peer-to-peer poker tables at the pari-mutuel cardrooms.
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Originally Posted by SunSentinel
Entitled “voter control of gambling,” this is an initiative bankrolled by Disney and the Seminole Tribe of Florida that would require any extension of casino gambling to be approved by voters statewide. This amendment would protect the Tribe’s near-monopoly on casino-type games in Florida. It would prevent South Florida racinos from consolidating licenses to create a destination casino, as proposed two years ago. It would prohibit slot machines in eight counties — Palm Beach, Lee, Brevard, Duval, Gadsden, Hamilton, St. Lucie and Washington — whose voters have approved local referendums to allow slots.
True. But the efforts to authorize a destination casino in South Florida and slot machines in those eight counties have already failed in the Florida legislature. To authorize them would violate the state-Seminole compact and cause a loss of all revenue-sharing from the tribe to the state. These proposals were part of an overhaul of gambling law in Florida that included negotiations with the tribe for a new compact that included eliminating most of the banked card games at the pari-mutuels and giving the tribe craps and roulette at their casinos exclusively. The state has since lost the battle on banked games in the Florida courts, losing much of their negotiating leverage with the tribe. I don't see hardly any chance now that these two proposals will get any headway in the legislature.
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Originally Posted by FloridaToday
On the surface, Amendment 3 empowers voters. But because the referendum would be statewide, voters in one part of the state would decide whether a gaming facility can open somewhere else. This would benefit larger companies that have the resources to gather hundreds of thousands signature needed for a referendum.
True. But it is also true the currently voters that want a gaming facility in their locale can't just vote it in by themselves. They also need a vote by the state legislature to authorize it, which means state congressional representatives from around the state decide their fate. This has proven impossible because it includes representatives that have Disney or a Seminole casino in their jurisdiction, and those reps that are anti-gambling.
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Originally Posted by TampaBayTimes
[Amendment 3] is unfair. It would allow casino gambling in Florida only if voters — and only voters — proposed a constitutional amendment, which would then, of course, have to pass. That cuts out the other two means of placing amendments on the ballot, through the Legislature or the Constitution Revision Commission. On Amendment 3, the Tampa Bay Times recommends voting No.
True. I agree this is a fault with Amendment 3.
Last edited by PokerXanadu; 10-27-2018 at 06:50 AM.